The invention pertains to an apparatus for stripping a protective coating from a substrate.
Frequently, it is necessary to strip a protective coating from a substrate or other object prior to actual installation or use of the substrate or object. For example, an ornamental plate intended for architectural usage may be originally coated with polyethylene film for shipping and storage. Before the plate can be used, it is of course necessary to strip away the polyethylene film coating. Another use of such an apparatus is for stripping protective coatings from copper-plated laminar resin substrates which are used to form printed circuit boards. It is necessary to remove the plastic film with which the sheet is coated before the copper layers can be photolithographically processed.
The most common prior art approach to removing a protective coating from a substrate or the like is to do so manually. However, this approach requires a great amount of time, and is a fatigue-inducing task.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for stripping away protective coatings which is capable of automatically and continuously stripping a protective coating from the surface of a substrate or other object.